The Last of the Etela, EPILOGUE: Seeking Shelter in the Scorpion's Lair

We begin at the bitter, bitter end.

This was the last time he would look back. No one was following them.

It felt like only yesterday that Tanaz ul-Turan of the tribe Hodrir was a rising star in a powerful kingdom. He was the oldest living son of the sword-arm of the High King of Ikune himself, Kareva ul-Varyta of the Hodrir, the Shieldbreaker, the Shadow of Death, the Most Beloved of the Goddess Vei, the Keeper of the Way.

The greatest hero in the history of their people.

In fact, it had been exactly seventy-three days since Kareva himself had formally welcomed an awestruck Tanaz into his royal guard, marking him with the sign of the Blood Goddess: a deep, slow, straight cut with a sharp knife still glowing from the heat of the cleansing fire, starting just below the left eye and ending at the jaw, two inches or so from the corner of the mouth. It was the mark that all ranking Ikunir officers wore, including the king himself: the symbol of their devotion to the goddess who’d given them power, the wound they must bear without flinching to prove their worth.

Uleni minun, Tanaz ul-Turan? the king had intoned, addressing his oldest friend’s son in the formal way, holding the ceremonial dagger just under Tanaz’s eyelid. Are you mine?

Ulenu sinun, Matavuz, Tanaz had replied. I am yours, Mightiness.

And with that the king dug the razor-sharp edge down into his face.

Tanaz had not flinched, had not blinked. He had simply stared straight ahead at the scar on his father’s face, the mark that he had coveted since before he knew what it meant.

I believe you, the king said, withdrawing the blade. He turned the bloody dagger around in his hand to offer it to Tanaz—handle-first, as a sign of his trust—and then kissed him on the forehead.

Tanaz had not felt the pain through the exultation. The king had marked him personally. His future was bright.

And seventy-three days later, that future was gone.

The last tattered remnants of the Hodrir were on the run. Their great hero Kareva was dead—as were his sons, who had quickly raised the largest army Ikune had seen in a generation to go north and avenge their father’s murder. Six nights ago, they had crashed headlong into an even larger force, a massive, bristling, leaderless mob of northerners who threw themselves into the fray with a desperate fearlessness that the disciplined, organized Ikunir soldiers could not overcome. The Pohyor died in horribly, impossibly large numbers. And they took the entire army of Ikune with them.

Tanaz’s father was surely dead as well. Turan’s last order to his son was to leave the field before their forces could be fully surrounded, to get home and then escape with his family and anyone else he thought he could trust, to make sure some vestige of their people survived even if the kingdom they had built did not.

Tanaz hated himself for obeying. But his commanding officer had ordered it. And so here he was, leading a small band south towards an ancestral homeland he had only seen once.

They could not stay in Ikune, after all. Even if it was safe for them, Tanaz wouldn’t have stayed. He was completely uninterested in picking at the kingdom’s carcass. He had believed in Kareva first and foremost, just like his father had, and he knew that not a single one of the men who might seek to replace him now was worthy of doing so. Even Kareva’s own sons had just barely managed to rule unquestioned for the first two weeks after his death, and with them gone Tanaz could think of nobody strong enough to hold Kareva’s coalition together—which meant there would be more violence. And every man he’d ever completely trusted was dead on that ridge north of the Brul.

—

Behind him, Tanaz’s wife Mari led the column of women and children, flanked by the armed horsemen her husband had led out of their home. She stared straight ahead as well, determined not to show her charges the fear that had been consuming her since her husband came home three nights ago. The look on his face had been all she needed to see to know what had happened. Even before he said “Take only what you need,” she understood they’d never set foot in Ikune again.

“Are the Pohyor through the gate?”

“No.” His tone terrified her. What could be worse than the Pohyor?

She turned her gaze to her husband now, tall and lean, with blue-black eyes and long dark hair. His face was open and kind, at least when he looked at her. The fresh scar, the mark of his devotion to Vei, seemed to define his features more from farther away. She often did not recognize him when he was with the other men. Standing with his father, or with the other Keepers, Tanaz often seemed to melt away; the mark would be the only thing that stood out on his face and the faces of the others.

None of the other men riding with them had one. Tanaz must be in charge. She hoped they didn’t know how frightened he was.

—

Some time on the eighth day of the journey, Tanaz noticed the grass starting to thin and dry out. They were getting closer.

There were mountains here in the dry country, too, to the east and the west of them. They were not as tall as the Brul, but their red-clay color made them somehow even more imposing. This was a hard place, only suitable for a hard people. The Hodrir and the rest of the tribes of the Etela had scratched out a living here for centuries, unchanging in the face of every sort of upheaval; even as recently as fifty years ago, Ta’a—the Way of the gods—had ruled in this small part of the world. Even as the two rival empires just to the north warred over which of their gods was the One True God, painting the lands around the holy city of Ikune red for hundreds of miles, the Etela had kept worshiping the way they always had. When the Pohyor came down and drove a wedge between those spent, dying powers, expanding south all the way to the edge of the desert and foisting their own version of the One True God on their new subjects at spearpoint, the Etela had kept to the old gods, to the Way, and died rather than submit—and when all seemed lost, divine Vei had set her favorite son Kareva upon the northern invaders to pay them back in kind.

Tanaz touched the scar on his cheek. Why had Vei abandoned Kareva and his sons now?

He hadn’t been able to get that question out of his mind for days. It haunted his sleep. In what way had the king angered their patroness to warrant such a terrible, sudden end to his line? Hadn’t he done his duty? Hadn’t he protected her people and killed their enemies without mercy? When his first son betrayed him, didn’t he do his duty then, too? Had he not given his own child to the Goddess with his own hand, as the Way commanded? After all of that, how could she let this happen? How had Kareva given offense?

Perhaps he hadn’t.

Perhaps she was simply tired of him, and left him unprotected on a whim.

That was what kept Tanaz awake, the gnawing feeling that he was alone out here, that Vei and the other gods didn’t even know who he was, let alone love him—and that his wife and these other riders were following him under false pretenses.

—

At first, Mari thought the discomfort and nausea were just the result of eight days of rough travel and eight nights of fitful sleep, or perhaps the salted deer meat not agreeing with her, before she remembered that she had in fact forgone the deer meat and began to wonder if perhaps she was with child.

—

On their fourth day in the mountain pass, one of the riders saw the rock formation that Tanaz had told them to look out for—the one with the etching of the scorpion carved at ankle height into a peculiar opening in the mountainous pathway.

It was easy to miss the scorpion, if you didn’t know where to look. That was what Turan warned him of, on the journey they had taken together when he first came of age. If you were looking for it at the wrong height and missed it, you could go several more miles without realizing you had passed it by—and then suddenly, you’d be walking out of the rocks and into an endless desert. There would be no more fresh water for dozens of miles. Maybe hundreds.

You must remember this place, Turan had said sternly, almost angrily, both hands on his teenaged son’s shoulders. You and I and the Kogon himself are the last ones who know about it. No one else ever travels this way; they think it’s a wasteland. So it is the safest place in the world, if you need it. As long as you can find the scorpion.

Why would we need a place to hide, Father? he had asked.

—

Mari was stunned by the coolness of the freshwater pond. She drank deeply, and splashed her face, and the ladies with her did the same. Mari could see the desert and the journey and the uncertainty dripping off of them with every passing second.

The more she thought about it, the more sure she was. It was almost six weeks since the last time she bled; in her haste and terror, she had not thought of it as they were leaving the city.

It must have been the night before Tanaz went north. Something had felt different that night. It might just have been the swirling emotions around the death of the king, or the intensity with which Tanaz had looked at her as he took her. He was going off to battle for the first time since his face was cut. He would have to fight more bravely than ever now, so that the gods (and the new king) would notice him and favor him, and that meant he would have to put himself in more danger than he ever had before. And to do that, he needed more from her that night, and she was afraid for him and so needed more from him as well.

He did not stay afterward. He could not. There were plans and tasks and prayers to be completed before they left, and he had to be at the young king’s disposal. She lay awake, and prayed for his safe return.

Her prayers had been answered. I should have asked for more, she thought to herself idly.

—

They walked now, instead of riding, leading their horses slowly and carefully through the hollow mountain.

Tanaz was the only one without his sword drawn; the rest of his men followed with their blades at the ready, worried about what might come forth to meet them in this dark, terrifying place. Tanaz knew. They were close now. His father had shown him this very path, the darkest and widest path through the mountain, this massive hole in the rock that some monster must have dug before the dawn of man. Whatever had made the hole was long gone, though...

He felt a hand touch his sleeve and flinched, ever so slightly, for just a moment.

“Husband.” It was Mari.

“Wife.”

“I ...we are...” Mari paused. Tanaz knew immediately and, in spite of his best efforts to remain calm, felt a well of joy and love and terror rise in him.

“How long?” His voice was shaking.

“Not very long. A few weeks more and I’ll be sure.”

His hand found hers in the dark. She squeezed it, reassuringly. This was a good thing.

—

As dawn broke, they found what they were looking for. The tunnel opened out into a sunny, rocky outcrop looking over the desert. Looming in the near distance was a single, imposing structure growing out of the last wisps of grass.

Just as he had when his father first showed him how to use the hilt of his family’s sword to spring the lock on the heavy iron gate, Tanaz felt a thrill as he put the carved pommel stone into the keyhole, twisted, and felt the old, rusty metal give way to his push. He walked through the gate and looked around.

Kalaa Ukruv'r. The Scorpions’ Lair, the red-clay fortress that divine Vei built for the first of the Hodrir chieftains and surrounded by a desert labyrinth so he and his men could venture out and make war in her name without fearing for their families. The place where the great Kareva was born. The place where Tanaz’s father was born.

It wasn’t much. It felt smaller than Tanaz remembered from that first journey to the desert, and the effects of almost forty years of disuse were visible in every structure.

But there was a source of drinking water close by, and with a little luck they could get the well working again, and the grain they had taken with them from the stores of Ikune would grow here too, and then maybe they could wait out the end of the old world in peace.

—

Read the next chapter.

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The Last of the Etela: Table of Contents